Russia in transition 1881 to 1991: the decline of tsarism, the 1917 revolutions, the building of the communist state, Stalinism, and the road to collapse under Gorbachev.

What this dot point is asking

This WJEC period study asks you to explain change and continuity across more than a century of Russian history, from the autocracy of Alexander III in 1881 to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. You need command of the long arc (tsarism, revolution, the communist state and its collapse) and the synoptic skill of comparing crises and weighing continuity against change.

The answer

Late tsarism, 1881 to 1917

• Repression and reform. Alexander III pursued Russification and tight control after his father's assassination (1881); Nicholas II conceded the Duma only under pressure in 1905.
• 1905 revolution. Defeat by Japan and Bloody Sunday (January 1905) triggered mass unrest; the regime survived because the army stayed loyal and the October Manifesto split the opposition.
• Collapse in 1917. The First World War shattered the economy and army morale; food shortages and the loss of elite support forced Nicholas to abdicate in February 1917.

Revolution and the communist state, 1917 to 1924

The Provisional Government failed to end the war or solve land hunger, and the Bolsheviks under Lenin seized power in October 1917. They won the civil war (1918 to 1921) through the Red Army (Trotsky), War Communism and Cheka terror, then steadied the economy with the New Economic Policy (1921). By Lenin's death in 1924 a one-party dictatorship was entrenched.

Stalinism and the superpower, 1924 to 1953

The USSR industrialised at huge human cost, then bore the main burden of defeating Nazi Germany in the Second World War (around 27 million Soviet dead), emerging in 1945 as a superpower controlling Eastern Europe.

Stagnation and collapse, 1953 to 1991

After Stalin's death, Khrushchev's de-Stalinisation (the 1956 Secret Speech) and Brezhnev's "era of stagnation" kept the system stable but economically sluggish. Gorbachev's reforms from 1985, glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring), loosened control, encouraged nationalism in the republics, and could not save the system. The failed coup of August 1991 hastened the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991.

Examples in context

Model paragraph (why 1917 not 1905). The decisive variable separating survival in 1905 from collapse in 1917 was the impact of total war on the loyalty of the army. In 1905 the regime, though shaken by Bloody Sunday and defeat by Japan, retained an army that remained largely obedient, so it could repress the Moscow rising while the October Manifesto peeled the liberals away from the revolutionaries. By February 1917 that foundation had crumbled: three years of war had killed or maimed millions, supply had broken down so that Petrograd lacked bread and fuel, and the Petrograd garrison, ordered to fire on demonstrators, mutinied instead. The tsar's decision to take personal command in 1915 had also tied his prestige to military failure and left government in the hands of the discredited Alexandra and Rasputin. The contrast shows that tsarism's survival depended above all on coercive loyalty, and that the war, by destroying it, turned manageable unrest into terminal collapse.

Try this

Q1. Why did tsarism survive 1905 but not 1917? [2 marks]

• Cue. In 1905 the army stayed loyal and the October Manifesto split the opposition; by 1917 the war had broken army morale and supply.

Q2. What were Gorbachev's two key reforms? [2 marks]

• Cue. Glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring).

Q3. To what extent was the First World War the main reason tsarism collapsed in 1917? [20 marks]

• What the marker wants. A comparison of 1905 and 1917 isolating the war's effect on the army and supply, with a supported judgement and dated evidence.